Nebraska Extension in Scotts Bluff County

Nebraska Extension will conduct chemigation certification training sessions through early April at Alliance, Sidney, Bridgeport, and Scottsbluff, as well as other sites around Nebraska, such as North Platte and Ainsworth.

Producers who plan to apply crop nutrients and pesticides through irrigation systems during 2019, including those who need to renew their 2018 permits, are required to attend a training session and pass the test administered afterward. Attendees are asked to pre-register at the extension office whose session they plan to attend. They will receive a training manual and calibration workbook to review before the training session.

Cutworm numbers have been on the increase in western Nebraska over the past several years, and the damage they can cause to dry edible bean fields has bean growers and others in the industry concerned.

Luckily, it is not too difficult or too expensive to control cutworms. But effective control depends on applying insecticide at the right time. And knowing the right time is a matter of monitoring populations of cutworm moths, which lay the eggs that produce the cutworms.

A hands-on workshop scheduled for early March is designed to train people to identify cutworms from all the other moths, and show how to monitor populations. It is organized by UNL Extension Entomologist Jeff Bradshaw, based at the Panhandle Research and Extension Center in Scottsbluff.